


vallaslin

by Rethira



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Study, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 11:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16831906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rethira/pseuds/Rethira
Summary: there is no vallaslin for fen'harel. so she makes one.





	vallaslin

**Author's Note:**

> written a couple of years ago, xposting from tumblr

there is no vallaslin for fen’harel. if a design ever existed, it’s long since been lost

so ellana makes one. in truth she’s no great artist. her first efforts are clumsy, with wonky lines - nothing that would translate well from paper to a face. but she improves, slowly

she burns all those early designs as soon as she finishes them. it’s impossible to keep all of solas’ spies out, but she _can_ keep them from seeing this until she’s ready

(she’s still in love with him, of course)

the vallaslin comes together in pieces

fen’harel’s eyes, set about her own. the laughing curve of his teeth, following on from her mouth. the sharp lines of a wolf’s jaw covering her’s

solas will hate it when he sees it. he’d hated mythal’s vallaslin on ellana’s skin, and that for a god she’d honoured because… because she felt little kinship with the others. better to honour mythal, all-mother, and so honour them all, than single out _one_ and try to cleave to something she didn’t feel

but solas saw _slave_ when he saw her marks, and he will see _slave_ again when- when this time if anything he should see love. love wielded like a dagger, meant to _hurt_ , because hadn’t he hurt her? hadn’t he whispered _vhenan_ and taken her vallaslin and then shamed her and sent her away, and made her bare-faced and unwelcome amongst all those she’d called kin?

(she’d come back crying then, and only a handful of people quite knew what was wrong. loranil, in the courtyard, had stared in shock at her face and all but run away)

so. vallaslin to honour fen’harel, because… because fool that ellana is she loves him still, and finds more to honour in him that in any of the other gods. but vallaslin to honour fen’harel because it will hurt him, it will cut him to the quick when he sees her again, and she wants him to hurt as _she_ is hurting - cole had said, once, _if she is real, then maybe they’re all real_ , but ellana thinks that even now, solas _still_ doesn’t quite believe in the reality of _her_

(maybe he never will)

no-one still dalish would put _these_ marks to her skin. her own clan still regards her with suspicion, even fear; she cannot ask her keeper to do this

but there are exiled dalish, or lost dalish - in the end, varric tells ellana of his friend merrill, the cause of clan sabrae’s destruction, and ellana visits kirkwall

it’s… strange. ellana cannot say she likes the city, but varric seems happier there than he ever was in skyhold

merrill makes an odd noise when she sees the vallaslin ellana wants, but she nods her head and says she’ll do it. she fusses over inks awhile, and tells stories about hawke (still missing, still gone, and merrill’s eyes go bright and sharp when ellana says they’ve heard nothing) and her eluvian looms terribly in the corner of her house. _locked,_ merrill insists, _and i asked some… friends to keep an eye on the other side. varric says i should just break it, but… what if hawke’s trying to come home? oh i must sound_ terribly _foolish to you_ -

 _no,_ ellana says, _no_

merrill inks ellana’s vallaslin in stark, black lines on her face

there are many strange elves outside in the alienage. more than one rear back in alarm when ellana comes outside - a few, clearly exiled dalish, all but run away from her

one of them is unusually tall and broad for an elf. ellana looks her in the eye and smiles

**Author's Note:**

> funfact i went into dai promising myself i would NOT romance solas and then there i was and here i am


End file.
